With Sunny Sweeney, Merle Haggard and newcomer Glenn Kearney leading the charge, this listening session was packed with hard-core sounds. There’s not a pop platter in the stack.

A lot of this week’s tunes are ballads, but some of these sounds can really rock your world. Definitely turn it up when you put on Sunny, Kyle Park or our Disc of the Day winner, MCA’s Kip Moore. I was a huge fan of Kip’s “Mary Was the Marrying Kind,” and “Somethin’ ‘Bout a Truck” delivers on that initial promise in spades.

JOSH THOMPSON/ChangeWriter: Josh Thompson/Phil O’Donnell/Chris Wallin; Producer: Phil O’Donnell; Publisher: none listed, BMI/ASCAP; Columbia (CDX)—The lyric’s message is the more things change, the more they stay the same. Josh’s plain-spoken delivery is set to a deliberate, shuffling tempo underscored by sighing, keening electric guitar work. At first listen, it seems a mite dull, but I have a feeling it could grow on me.

KIP MOORE/Somethin’ ‘Bout a TruckWriter: Kip Moore/Dan Couch; Producer: Brett James; Publisher: Music of Stage Three/Songs of Comman/Roll Through/BMG Chrysalis/Songs From the Couch, BMI; MCA Nashville (CDX)—This former DisCovery Award winner has a cool, blue-collar-rocker vibe that gets more and more intense as this thumper progresses. I dig everything about this—the way it’s written, the way he wails it, the insistent percussion, the instrumental fade, everything.